poliphilo | Misogyny

Misogyny

OK- so it's wrong for women to be overweight.

And it's also wrong for them to be underweight. So wrong that Milan has banned skinny models from the catwalk and there are calls for them to be banned universally.

I don't know whether our society hates women or fears them or a bit of both but, whatever dark things are stirring in the collective psyche, what's happening out in the light is that women are getting bossed about- as usual. Ooh, they don't know how to look after themselves, the sluts; let's teach 'em.

Sit up girls and take notice; daddy has something to say; You've got to eat up everything on your plate or you don't get to go out to play. Yes, even the broccoli. Especially the broccoli. I know it's tough, Samantha, but it's for your own good!

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So, ban the scrawny female ~~undead~~ model, but what about the MALE designer, who has an option whether to make clothes for real women or continue to dress beanpoles? Work from the source, people, work from the source out.

Obviously the skinny models and the designers who use them are what people want. If they weren't they'd be out of a job.

High fashion puzzles me. Haut couture seems to be about men (mainly gay men) playing dress-up with their dolls. There's part of me which wonders why anyone takes it seriously.

But I don't think bans are the way to go...

To me, a devoted fan of style, haute Couture seems to be a game of "Okay, how ugly can we make it this year and get away with it?"

I'm learning...

I've recently become a fan of America's Next Top Model.

Oh. My. God.

This is the beginning of mental decline, you know? It's all downhill from here.

But it's such fun....

:)

I watch "Dancing with the Stars" for Mario Lopez' dimple.

I don't believe we have that.

But we do have a show I'm rather partial to called Strictly Dance Fever.

I'm not quite sure how to respond to this, really - on the one hand, I absolutely agree. Because there are societies where it's preferred a woman be fat, to the point where relatives will make a girl eat and eat so that she'll have the perfect body.

On the other hand - the reason those models are unhealthily (and let's face it - most of them are not "naturally" that thin, no matter what they say. Yes, some women tend to be waifish, but these models by and large push it with dieting and so forth) thin is because our society has beat it into our heads that "thin" is perfect...the thinner the better. It has severely skewed our own perceptions of ourselves, to where we see ourselves as fat even when our weight is quite acceptable for our height.

It's not healthy to be overweight. It's also not healthy to be underweight. And....being extremely underweight due to bulemia, anorexia and/or drugs is more likely to kill a woman sooner than being overweight. You have only to take a look at Nicole Ritchie these days to see how heartbreaking and frightening it is when someone has bought into "thin is better" so much that their brain no longer recognizes they are slowing killing themselves.

I'd have to say that having the fashion industry putting their foot down about severely underweight models is a good thing - not just for the model's sake, but for the thousands of girls and women out there who try and emulate the bodies they see in magazines, who vomit up food and starve themselves to try and attain the unattainable, and end up dead or in the hospital and spend the rest of their lives struggling with an eating disorder.

This came out of reading an interview with Erin O'Connor- the natural bean-pole who is currently featuring in a high profile Marks and Spencers ad campaign.

She feels, not unreasonably, that she's being got at.

And that's my point- society is always nagging at women to look like this, look like that. It seems to me that it's about control.

What I find especially odd about the Milan ban, is that designers started using super skinny models (I think Twiggy was the first) so that the women would be unattractive, and not draw attention away from the clothing. The idea is still somewhat present on the catwalk, with women wearing bizarre hair styles and makeup, to try and remove the woman from the clothing, and for the clothing to speak for itself (this is why they walk funny too, so you can see how the clothing moves, and supposedly, ignore how the woman moves).

I guess it wasn't expected that men would find these twigs so attractive that people would want to look like them, forgetting the high end clothing, and just going for the not quite dead look.

I have absolutely no interest in fashion, but I am mildy curious to see what sort of models will be allowed in Milan, what the new idea of beauty will be. Somehow I doubt Willendorf will be represented!

Exactly--the idea was for the clothes to be the center of attention, not the woman. Says quite a bit for cultivation theory, though, doesn't it?

I didn't know that. I thought models had always been chosen for their (good) looks.

I love Twiggy. Always have done. She's fronting the current M&S ad campaign and she's still absolutely gorgeous.

I also find Twiggy quite attractive, but she didn't have the curves of the other fashion models of the day. The idea was for the model to be like a walking hanger, to see the clothing in action, and not notice the women.

This in and of itself is a bit offensive, is the clothing the beauty, or is the woman? I'd like to think that it is the woman, and that beautiful clothing only compliments natural womanly beauty. (this too applies to men, at least in my mind, but that isn't quite the topic of our conversation regarding Milan)

I always thought we were celebrating Twiggy for herself.

A new kind of beauty- androgynous, gamine- very sixties.

I have such mixed feelings about this. Anorexia and bulimia are terrible diseases; however, I feel that there is an out-and-out war on thin women in society.

I get so angry any time I get to "go eat something" by strangers. What the hell do they know? Still, I feel guilty. They thin-shame me!

It's abusive to make anyone feel guilty about the way they are. I'm afraid this war on the unhealthy waif look, which is based on a standard that doesn't apply to all bodies very well, is going to thin-guilt instead of showing women to enjoy the bodies they have, big or small.

It's just not the way to go about it.

Exactly.

It's about control, I think- About punishing uppity women, dragging them down, keeping them on edge and feeling small. Look at the way the media went after Kate Moss. She was too big for her boots and they went all out to destroy her.

Instead of which, she is more famous and more in demand than ever before.

Go, Kate!

If a male rock star does cocaine and sex it's what male rock stars do; if a woman does it, it's "kill the bitch!"

What bothers me most about this new mandate is that, to me, it seems like kind of a slap in the about-face to what the industry itself has essentially demanded that models look like in order to walk the catwalk in the industry's clothes. Spending countless years (since Twiggy, and of course reaching the apex with the whole "Heroin Chic" Moss period) and seasons sending potentially "too-thin" models down the walk, only to issue this ban on women of that exact same body type? Even those of us who love fashion have to sneer at the fickleness of the industry engendered by this new mandate. "Hello! Logic, anyone?! You can't promote one body type for nearly a half-century and then all of a sudden ban it!"

Yes.

And of course the fashion bosses aren't being asked to change.

It's the poor bloody women getting slapped around- as usual.

Oh, I know. I have such a place in my heart for Kate. She really whatevered everyone. She and Martha Stewart, too.

I think Kate's story is culturally significant. They dragged her down, she survived, she gave them the finger. When has this ever happened before?

Female celeb refuses to be a victim. It's a first.

wait, milan too? i know they did this in madrid, but milan is on a different scale altogether in the fashion world...

Ach: I may have confused my major European cities beginning with "M".

You're right. Madrid not Milan. Sorry about that.

But Milan has been put into a tizzy by what happened in Madrid- and Milan's mayor has talked about imposing a similar ban.

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Where do I stand? I think we should stop bullying people about how they look. There are extremes of fatness and thinness which are unhealthy, but everything else, in between, is cool.

I hate it how our society teaches women to hate their bodies.

I'm married to a large woman, by the way...:)

There are extremes of fatness and thinness which are unhealthy, but everything else, in between, is cool.

There are definitely extremes that are unhealthy, but what intrigues me is why this one issue in particular seems to have become a moral issue disguised as "concern about women's health."

Lots of behaviors are very unhealthy and yet there doesn't seem to be as much vitriol spewed at, say, avid suntanners or the sleep-deprived as there is at people who are very fat or very skinny. Of course it's not healthy to be obese, but it's probably not very healthy for me to drink as much beer as I do, too. That doesn't give anyone the right to yell insults at me on the street.

It's a catch-22. On one hand, I think it's important to inform people about all of the factors that might affect their health. On the other hand, I think that all this attention to the health effects of weight are providing too handy a front for people who really just, deep down, want to punish fat or skinny people.

I think the obese and bulimic are being attacked because they're easy targets, because they're not going to hit back, because they're powerless.

It's just schoolyard bullying on a larger scale. Ooh look, that kid is kinda weird-looking; let's make her cry!

And because there's a genuine medical issue involved the bullies can call names and point fingers and still feel righteous about themselves.

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I'm watching series #3 of America's Top Model. There's a plus size girl who's made the cut this time round and she's amazing and fearless and proud.

could I paraphrase this (and cite it if you'd like) in my newspaper blog?

Please use it in any way you choose. :)

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Misogyny

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Go, Kate, indeed!

Re: Go, Kate, indeed!

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